For bedridden people, toileting, showering, and avoiding bedsores are some of the most difficult tasks to accomplish independently. Solutions for these issues differ depending on the level of the physical impairment of the bedridden person. It is understandable that someone who loses almost all movement capability must get a nurse's help.
Care beds are known that have showering envelopes, water collectors, or hoses, in which the bedridden person can remain in bed to accomplish these activities. Although these known care beds provide help to the bedridden person and to the nurse caring for that person, such care beds are still inconvenient in practice.
In some care beds, the mattresses or beds have openings for patients to do toileting. This type of bed needs to be customized. In addition, bedding on top of the mattress often gets contaminated during the toileting process. With the opening and contamination, patients often feel uncomfortable compared to a normal sleeping environment.
In another known care bed system, a shower bath uses a mattress that is put into a tub. The mattress can move vertically to help the patient get into and out of the water.
Another type of shower bath tub is known which contains a toilet seat inside the tub. The water closet function is provided without increasing the space requirement relative to conventional shower-bathtubs, and feces cannot block the shower water discharge. However, transferring the patient to the bath tub in the above two cases is still significant work for the nursing staff.
In some other systems, showering/bathing envelopes are provided in which a person can be laid down while the caretaker washes the person's body. Issues with such a device include: 1) the person must be transferred to the bathing envelope; and 2) watching and contacting the cared person's body during the bathing process are necessary, which makes some people uncomfortable.
A three-section mattress or platform is included in other systems, in which the mattress or platform can turn into a chair for showering or using a toilet. Such mattresses or platforms, however, have a waterproof surface which is good for showering or toileting, but is not good for long-term sleeping as comfortably as on a common mattress or a bed with dry and soft bedding.
Bedsores are another issue for many bedridden patients. One way to reduce bedsores is to use a mattress that has one or both sides which can rise under mechanical or electrical drive, as seen on today's market, which rolls the patient to the left or right, but nursing help is also sometimes needed.